06/17/2009
Submissions on the UK Equality Bill
These are the Equality Network's written submissions related to the UK Equality Bill.
The Equality Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 24th April 2009. The bill improves and harmonises equality law in Great Britain. However it is not perfect. It is missing the following:
- clear protection from sexual orientation harassment by providers of goods and services
- clear protection from gender identity harassment by schools
- a definition of gender identity discrimination and harassment that clearly covers all transgender people
- and there are problems with some of the exceptions that allow discrimination against transgender people in some circumstances.
The Equality Network is calling for amendments to the bill to address these issues. We made a number of written submissions which are attached at the bottom of this page.
We submitted evidence to the Commons Committee considering the bill, and submitted a briefing to the Committee in support of amendments to add the missing harassment protections. We also submitted evidence to the Commons/Lords Joint Committee on Human Rights.
The bill deals mostly with issues that are reserved to the UK Parliament, but also has some effect on issues that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Therefore the Scottish Parliament is considering a 'Legislative Consent Memorandum' to consent to the bill making changes to those devolved issues. We submitted evidence to the Scottish Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee on the Legislative Consent Memorandum.
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